Recyclables to art

We all produce garbage and recyclables, that’s a fact of life. How can we take that and breathe some new life into them? If we follow in the steps of artists like Yuken Teruya, Miguel Rivera, and Jane Perkins we can. We can take some inspiration from them as to what can be done with random left over stuff and what would become waste. We have composting for food, but what happens to the rest of the stuff? Well one example is art.

Yuken Teruya took something we practically all have experience throwing away and also made a underlying statement out of it. These cardboard tubes were once part of a forest. Our forests could be wiped out if we continue our use-once-and-destroy culture.

This piece of art is by an artist named Miguel Rivera, as one can see, it is a bunch of old computer parts, specifically hard drives making up the sculpture.

This is some of Jane Perkins art; she feels recycled art is a great challenge and loves the surprises that can be found in recycling centers and junkyards. As one can see it is made up of a bunch of different random pieces of junk/recyclables to a great looking piece.

This seems to be on the extreme end—in a good way. These are great examples of what can be done. The sky’s the limit with both imagination and the materials that can be used. As seen through these artist’s examples, they took different approaches to the same problem: what to do with waste that isn’t organic (food, yard, etc.)

So what can you do about it at home? Well, there’s been a trend on social media lately showing about random crafts using trash and/or recyclables to make something new. Take some of these DIY Christmas craft ideas for example—they use recyclable materials:

Cardboard paper towel tube ornament:

Hanging cardboard christmas tree:

As you can see pretty easy to take some random stuff that one would normally throw away and make it a useful decoration around the house this holiday season. What else can you think of? Let your imagination run wild and take something that you would normally throw out and breathe new life into it.